


In Case of Flash Flood

by Annakovsky



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-12
Updated: 2006-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pam updates the emergency contacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Case of Flash Flood

There aren't any temps in the office at the moment, so when Michael decides to update the emergency contacts, Pam's the go-to-girl. That's what he says. "Pamela Anderson Lee, you're my go-to-girl!" He's still doing the Pam Anderson thing, even though she and Roy filed for divorce three weeks ago.

She updates her own information first, takes a blank form. She's back to being Pam Beesly, and her emergency contact is her mom, and it's like it's 2005 again, like maybe Jim still works here and she's 26 and life hadn't quite yet become this tunnel she can't get out of.

She starts with accounting and works her way back through sales and quality assurance. Mostly, people's emergency contacts stay the same. Terri and Stacy and Michael Gary Scott. She can't leave the phone for too long at a time, so it takes all day to get through everybody.

Toby's last, all the way in the back. Kelly's on maternity leave, so it's actually quiet back there, five minutes to five with nobody in the break room.

"Hey," Pam says, and shows him the clipboard. "Michael wants me to update emergency contacts."

"Ah," Toby says, and swivels in his chair as she leans against the edge of his desk.

"Is your ex-wife still your contact?" Pam says.

Toby winces a little. "She…. I don't know. Do we really have to have an emergency contact?"

Pam shrugs. "Well, apparently we might be hit by a flash flood at any time."

"We're on the second floor," Toby says.

"I know," Pam says, and lifts her hands in a resigned gesture.

"Yeah, okay," Toby says, and his shoulders slump a little more than they were already. "She's still my emergency contact. They moved, though. To Philadelphia." He gives her the address, and Pam thinks about his daughter getting moved away from him and is glad she and Roy never got around to having any kids.

Pam copies down his ex-wife's phone number carefully, in black ink, and then re-caps her pen. "Okay, then," she says. Toby nods, and starts packing his stuff up to go home.

Pam hesitates at the door to the kitchen, thinking about her empty apartment, her stuff still mostly in boxes, and abruptly can't face it. "Hey," she says. "Do you want to get a drink or something?"

Toby looks up at her and hesitates. Pam wonders if he's thinking about his own dark, empty apartment, and she feels a sudden solidarity. "Sure," Toby says.

In the car on the way over to Poor Richard's, Toby says, "Do you ever hear from Jim any more?"

Pam looks straight out the windshield at the dark road, the dirty piles of snow along the curbs. "No," she says, then stops. "Well. He cc'ed me on a group email when he was in Australia, once."

"That trip he took right before he transferred?" Toby asks. His radio's tuned to NPR with the sound turned way down, so Pam can faintly hear the number of soldiers who died today in Iran. Cheerful.

"Yeah," Pam says. "So, no, not really."

They sit at the bar at Poor Richard's, and Pam gets a margarita, because she still hardly ever drinks, and it's one of the only ones she knows. Toby gets a beer.

There's something about Toby that makes you want to talk to him - Pam doesn't know whether that's the reason he went into HR, or the end result of being in HR for so long, or just the way he looks at you, like he's heard everything and nothing will surprise him. Like you can't make him any sadder than he already is. "What's it like, being divorced?" Pam asks, when her margarita's half empty. The papers will go through any day. She's never even broken up with somebody before.

Toby looks at her, then takes a sip of beer and puts the glass down carefully, on the very center of his coaster. His hand rests loosely on the top of the bar, pale against the dark wood. "You get used to it," he says, and nods once, to himself.

"Oh," Pam says. You can get used to a lot of things, she guesses. Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.

When she reaches out and puts her hand on top of his, his fingers are warm and dry, and he looks at her with his eyebrows raised.

"Let's get out of here," she says. He shrugs and gets his coat.

**  
END


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